Small And Green
by AwesomeEmuGirl
Summary: Bruce thinks he's finally found a cure for the Hulk. Instead, he's found something else entirely. He may not be the Other Guy anymore, but he's also not... human. The world is never going to let him have normal lab results, is it?


**A/N: So, uh, hi! I came up with this idea a while ago, but didn't finish the story until now... It's a pure crack-fic, and I thought it would be a fun story to start out here with. I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Bruce thinks he's finally done it. Finally found a cure for the Other Guy. He could cry with joy if it weren't for the fact that he's had too many false leads, and refuses to get his hopes up too high. But still, this could be the one.

He doesn't tell the other Avengers, because he knows what they'll say - "what are you doing Bruce, the Hulk is an Avenger, it's not a problem, don't get rid of him" - yeah, yeah. Tell that to the man who's had his entire life turned upside down and twisted around by that "Avenger." So he doesn't talk to them about it, because it would just be a waste of everyone's breath. His mind is firmly made up. Now he just has to wait until the moment is right to implement the cure without interference.

It occurs sooner than he expects, in the form of a mission that requires a lot of careful handling, per say. Hulk doesn't do careful, so Bruce stays behind as the rest of his team marches onto a quinjet and takes off to save the world. (To be fair, Tony and Thor don't really do careful either, but at least they understand the meaning of the word.) Bruce takes a deep, steadying breath, and forces himself to act confident as he walks towards his lab. If he acts confident, maybe he'll be confident, and then the chances of success will likely be higher - just as long as he doesn't get cocky, of course.

The trick works, just a little, and his pulse is somewhat calmer as he walks into the metallic white room. He focuses on his work and doing everything precision perfect, trying not to worry about whether or not it'll actually cure him. There's no time for that now, he's spent enough time thinking about it late at night when he can't sleep. He has too much to get done to let doubt get in his way. Get out all the materials. Measure very precisely. Mix carefully. Bottle into small tubes, clean the needles. Check the sedatives. Test the restraints. Tie a tourniquet around his upper arm and swab the area with alcohol. Good.

Heart beginning to pound, Bruce sits down on the table and snaps on the ankle restraints, then lies back. One of Tony's robots trundles over, humming slightly - Dummy, Bruce thinks the name is? He's borrowed the robot for a pair of extra hands. "Dummy," he says. "Mind snapping these on for me?"

Dummy whirs and, with some guidance, manages to secure Bruce's wrists to the table.

"JARVIS, the syringes, please."

"Certainly, Dr. Banner," replies the cool British voice.

The needles hovering above his arms descend. Bruce can feel them slide into his skin and he flinches, despite himself.

"Shall I activate the serum?"

Bruce nods. "Go for it."

With a hissing sound, the stoppers slide down and the serum is pushed into his veins. A curious sensation fills the area around the needles, like a slow sticky burning, and Bruce squirms. The restrains tighten a little around him as the feeling quickly spreads, propelled by the rapid beating of his heart, and he can feel the Hulk growling in the back of his mind. Instead of trying to suppress it, he lets it out.

Then everything goes green.

* * *

"Sir, there is a...situation back at the Tower."

"Not now, JARVIS." Tony repulsor-blasts away one of their enemies. This infiltration has not gone well. Only five minutes into the underground tunnels and someone tripped the alarm, sending guards rushing from all directions and drones pouring out of hidden wall panels. Thor managed to get the Avengers out of the tunnel by breaking a hole in the ceiling, but that only put them into a room full of more guards armed with even more dangerous machinery. So far, Tony is not enjoying this day. He does not need a "situation" at the Tower right now. That's actually the opposite of what he needs.

"Sir, it's urgent."

"And getting nearly decapitated with my own stolen technology isn't?" He fires more repulsors. Clint vaults off his shoulders, does a freaking backflip, and blows up the wall behind them with an explosive arrow.

"Dr. Banner has turned himself into a frog, sir."

Tony almost stops at this, but recovers himself in time to fire missiles at some idiots trying to kill Capsickle. "Uh, sorry?"

"He has turned himself into a frog."

"Well, that's new. Not really that urgent." He ducks as Natasha leaps off a piece of rubble and over his head. Seriously, what is with these SHIELD agents and jumping over him? He doesn't like this. "Activate thrusters and get me in the air, stat. I'm tired of being jumped over."

The thrusters activate. "Sir, Dr. Banner could easily get crushed by most equipment in the labs -"

"And you're trying to tell me that a falling robot can kill a Hulk-frog? Seriously, JARVIS, that doesn't even make sense. He's kind of indestructible." This is a much better vantage point, Tony finds, and begins locking targets.

"I have taken the liberty of performing a body scan on Dr. Banner, and his levels of radiation have significantly decreased. It would not be enough to protect him in the event of severe injury."

"Dammit, Banner, what the hell," Tony mutters to himself, and sends out his targeted missiles. "Why do you have to do awesome stuff like this when I'm gone?" With a sigh, he angles down and blasts himself into the next wave of guards, like some sort of fancy red and gold torpedo. "Guys, we've got a situation at the Tower," he says into the communications line.

"Be more specific, Stark," says Steve, then picks up a discarded gun and fires at any guards left standing by Tony's torpedo move.

"As in Banner turned himself into a frog." Tony is a firm believer in cutting straight to the chase.

"Sorry?" says Natasha. She sounds a little breathless. Probably in the middle of wrestling with a guard.

"Yep. You heard me. Into a frog," Tony says.

"Sir, I detect another incoming wave of guards," JARVIS warns.

"Yeah, got that." Tony dismisses JARVIS by repulsor blasting several guys carrying old Stark Industries tech. "Now listen team, according to JARVIS if anything falls on Banner, he'll basically get crushed and die, because he's a frog. Yes, it's weird for me too, but we live weird on a daily basis so this shouldn't be too bad. Anyways, someone has to go back and make sure our froggy friend doesn't die."

"We can't run away in the middle of a fight!" Steve protests, managing to give Tony an incredulous glare in between shield tosses.

"Did I say all of us, Spangly-Pants? I don't think so," Tony shoots back.

"Boys, enough," Natasha cuts in, before they get distracted. "If we can brings this place down on them, then we all go back ten times quicker."

"The trick is getting out alive," Clint says, as if he has experience in this area - actually, he probably does.

"Okay, well, two of us can fly, that's a start," Tony says. "JARVIS? Scan the building, find me some weak points."

"Already done, sir."

"Damn, you're good." Tony briefly studies the map that JARVIS pulls up for him. "Okay, two rooms down there's some major structural supports, and if we take those down, the house goes with 'em."

"And how are you going to get us out, genius?" Clint snarks, scaling some weapon hooks to take out enemies from above.

"Working on it, Katniss." Tony aims some more missiles at incoming guards. "It would come down too fast to go out the way we came, the tunnel would fall around us. Can we go out the side of the building?"

JARVIS answers with, "It is highly unlikely you would make it in time, sir."

"Okay, how about up?"

"A possibility, if there was already a path. However -"

"Yeah, Thor and I are the only fliers here. I know. JARVIS, how many people can I lift?"

"Given the current drain of power, and the fact that you only have two arms, the maximum carrying capacity is two."

"Hey, Thor, can you carry Cap out of here if we have to fly?"

Thor snorts dismissively as he swings his hammer into a man's stomach. "I can easily lift most on Asgard. Those on Earth are much lighter."

"Great, good to hear." Tony zooms off to take out a rogue drone. "So, the plan is bust a hole up to the roof, air-lift those of us who can't fly, and then I come back to take out the supports. We clear?"

Steve sighs. "About as good as we'll get, I suppose."

With that, Thor smashes their way into the correct room, and it's off to save Bruce from the trials and tribulations of being a frog.

* * *

When JARVIS told him Bruce was a frog, Tony had been expecting something small, sticky, green, and stereotypically frog-like. He didn't expect a large and dry toad-like animal, sitting on a lab table with a body so puffed out it looks like a balloon. In fact, the only prediction Tony got right was the green one - and even then, it's more of a radioactive green than a natural green.

"Huh," he says, and crosses his arms. "Odd looking thing, aren't you."

Then Bruce-frog opens his mouth and emits a strange sound - a high-pitched squeaking noise, not very frog-like at all - and promptly falls over. Not that the falling over actually does much, because his legs are so tiny.

Tony blinks at him for a second, then bursts into hysterical laughter.

Bruce puffs up and squeaks at this, and keeps squeaking, almost as if he's disgruntled and telling Tony to stop laughing at him. This just makes Tony laugh harder, because the whole situation is so ridiculous he really can't help it. Bruce officially takes the cake for the weirdest lab results of all time. First the Hulk, and now this.

* * *

Steve is decompressing from the battle, sitting in one of Tony's comfortable living chairs (the future does have very nice chairs, he'll give it that) when the man himself comes striding in, hands behind his back and a wild grin on his face. Instantly, Steve is on edge. It's never good when Tony smiles like that, and plus, he rarely walks like that either. Something is up.

"Stark...?" he starts, hesitantly, not really sure what to ask after that.

Luckily, Tony does the talking for him. "So I found Banner."

Well, that's one less thing for Steve to worry about, so he relaxes ever so slightly. "Nice work."

"It wasn't exactly hard, he was sitting on the lab table." Tony leans sideways against the bar, arms still clasped behind his back. "You don't exactly see a lot of frogs in the Tower, either."

"I would have to agree with that." Steve is cautious about this; if there's one thing he's learned, it's to always be cautious around Tony Stark.

"But anyways, Cap, I came here to show you something." Tony takes a few steps forward. "It's, well, I'm not gonna lie, it's Banner. I thought it would be good for you to get to know the newest member of our team, the Incredible Frog. He's not exactly your average green tree frog, he's pretty special. Got a great war cry, too."

"Is that what you have behind your back?" Steve sighs, and wants to facepalm. "Tony, you should be gentle with our teammates, seriously, don't...manhandle them."

"Not to worry, I'm being gentle!" Tony insists. "I am the master of gentle. Look, see?" He pulls his hands out from behind his back, and sure enough, there sits Hulk-Frog, very puffed up and looking quite disgruntled, if a frog can look disgruntled.

"That's him?" Steve asks, bending in to get a closer look.

He's startled by a shrill squeaking sound coming from Hulk-Frog's mouth. Scowling slightly in confusion, he looks at the frog, then at Tony, then at the frog, then at Tony again. Hulk-frog squeaks again, and Tony snorts as he tries to cover up his laughter.

Steve shakes his head. This is… He actually has no words for this. This would never have happened in his day. The future may have nice chairs, but in the 40's no one got turned into squeaking frogs.

Damn, he misses the 40's.

* * *

**A/N: T****he frog I described is real; it's called the desert rain frog, and they're glorious. They don't come in "radioactive" green, but I figured that in Bruce's case, it would make more sense that way.**

**I'd love to hear what people think about this, so reviews would be more than welcome. :)**


End file.
